


Don't Look Gift Horsepower In the Trunk

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam receives a gift-wrapped car and is horrified to learn that it came from Fiona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Look Gift Horsepower In the Trunk

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt "Sam receives a gift-wrapped car from a mystery person"

"Mi-kay!" Michael Westen froze as Sam abruptly wrapped him up in a quick bear hug. slapping him hard enough on the back to make Michael choke on a mouthful of water. "I OWE you, brother. What do you need? Yogurt, more beer?" He frowned at the bottle still in Michael's hand. "Water?" He spoke of the beverage the way another person would talk of snails.

Michael gave him a long, dumbfounded stare. The sort that read 'what have you done to Sam Axe, and what do I have to do to get him back?' Sam stared right back, his brow quirking. "You don't know what the hell I'm talking about, do you?"

 

"But I'll take the water," Michael said. Sam, naturally, didn't move toward the refrigerator and instead thumped down onto a kitchen chair, sucking on his teeth, a look of confusion painting itself onto his features.

"Then who the hell…"

"Who the hell…?" he allowed Sam to do the leading for once, bemused by his reaction.

"Ms. Reynolds kicked me out this morning," he said. "She found…" he got up, opened the kitchen window and pointed down, to the small cement courtyard outside of Michael's loft, "…THAT sitting out in her driveway this morning. With a big red bow on it. Accused me of cheating on her," he grumbled.

Michael headed cautiously to the window and peeked down. Sure enough, there was a fire-engine red Camero parked outside, sporting a noticeable (probably golf-club sized, if he had to judge) dent in the fender and a small mountain of possessions sitting in the backseat. Sam was already helping himself to a beer.

"I thought it was you," he grumbled. "Who else would…" his eyes lit up. "Veronica!" he snapped his fingers.

Michael put down the water and picked up a plastic container of blueberry yogurt from the counter, spooning its contents into his mouth. "Do you really think Veronica would..."

Sam interrupted, "Mikey, you don't know that woman. She once dropped ten thou on a weekend in Vegas just to put a smile on my face." He had crossed the room and was opening the loft's front door, apparently eager to see his old girlfriend.

"And I'm sure you spent the trip putting a smile on her face."

The grin that lit up Sam's face made Michael wince as the older man ducked out the doorway.

 

***

Michael and Fiona were in the middle of a cold lunch at Carlitos when Sam staggered up, a cut on his bottom lip and a bruise over his left eye.

It barely got a raised eyebrow out of Michael. "Not Veronica?"

"No," Sam grunted. "Damn, I need a beer…"

"In further developments, water is still wet," Fiona replied, flagging down their waiter.

Once the man departed in search of Sam's requested – and very expensive - beer, Sam returned to his lament. "She told me not to come back or she'll have her dog chew off my nuts." He shook his head. "Damn, I still don't know how it went wrong with her.'

"Doesn't she own a shitzu?" Michael remarked, idly.

Sam grumbled, raked a hand through his hair. "I'll figure it out. I've got sources…"

"Do I want to know?" Fiona asked blithely.

"Sam found a car out in his driveway this morning. It was a gift, apparently." Michael didn't bother to look up from the plate of grilled chicken salad.

"More like a curse," Sam complained.

"Oh, that," Fiona said, sounding almost bored. "That was me." Michael nearly laughed aloud at the look on Sam's face, which Fiona ignored. "A gift from a client of a client," she took a bite of her own salad and a swallow of wine. "I've already got my own, so I thought I would give it to him. I'm tired of losing transportation in the middle of a case because Sam's offended whomever he's sleeping with."

Sam leaned back from the table, away from Fiona, staring at her with an expression of utter horror. "That was from YOU?"

"Yes," Fiona said briefly.

His beer came, and Sam drank it down with a quick gulp. "Mikey, can you check the undercarriage of that thing for explosives?"

Fiona huffed angrily. "You think I'd try to kill you?"

"Normally? Slowly. With big, sharp knives," Sam offered. "But since you're in love with c4 I guess you wouldn't be above settling."

She glared at him over her cup of wine. "What happened to your manners, Sam?"

"Do something ladylike and I'll be a perfect gentleman."

She fumed, Sam fussed, and Michael watched them in silent bemusement.

 

***

They had been hunkered down in the Everglades for four hours when he finally spoke up. "Are you going to keep this up for the whole stakeout?"

Sam glowered, clearly startled by Michael's sudden complaint. Most of the time he could tune Sam out, but today his persistent whining was starting to grate on the nerves.

"…You know what the worst part is?" he asked.

"No, Sam," Michael said, squinting through his binoculars.

"Now I'm going to owe Fiona." He frowned dramatically.

"I'll add it to your tab," Michael said blithely.

"My tab?"

"The one I started running when you stole my beer back in Turkmenistan."

"That fell under the Geneva Convention," he replied, his expression suddenly turning businesslike. "There's your drug runners, Mikey."

Michael leaned forward in his seat, taking in the details. He thought he knew a way in, but that would be explored later, when he knew better their ways of coming and going. After they peeled out of the lot, Sam and Michael sat together in the dark, listening to the absolute silence.

"She isn't generous often. With anyone," Michael said, turning over the Charger's engine. "Keep that in mind."

Sam didn't say anything, and that alone told Michael that he was chewing the notion over.

 

***

He kept the car – because, he said, he liked the color red. Fiona watched Sam wash it, sweating his way through a wifebeater in hundred plus degree heat an afternoon not long after the Davoll project was finished. He looked exhausted and miserable; and for the first time in a long time, Fiona felt sorry for him. Michael lay abed, firmly asleep after a long night of pursuit, and so it would be up to her to make sure Sam didn't drop dead of dehydration.

He jumped in surprise when she handed him the beer. "Thanks," he muttered.

She lifted her chin in acknowledgement, leaning lightly against the bumper. She stared at the glowing hood of the car, he at the wheels.

"Uh…I didn't tell you thank you yet, did I?"

"No," she said, flipping through the issue of Cosmo she'd brought with her.

"Thanks," he said shortly.

Silence stretched between them.

"D'you want to take a spin down to Miami Beach?" he asked.

"To pick you up a new sugar momma?" Fiona replied.

"No, to bake you an even deeper shade of brown." Sam retorted.

They traded a quick look of new understanding, and he could have sworn she smiled – a smile that made him feel uneasy, but a smile nonetheless.

"Keep your eyes on the road," she said, "and I'll go."

THE END


End file.
